Nope DoorDash, paying workers minimum wage is not a “fee”.
You may have seen the pop-up ads in the DoorDash app where a bearded cartoon man without a mouth urges customers to oppose a proposed Seattle policy which would ensure gig workers are paid at least minimum wage after expenses, with flexibility protections and meaningful transparency.
The misleading ad claims that if DoorDash had to pay workers minimum wage after expenses, it would increase "fees" by $5 a delivery. There’s no $5 fee proposed by the city — as you can see if you click through the they’re talking about the PayUp proposal, which would require app companies to pay workers at least minimum wage after expenses
So what does it say about pay on DoorDash now if just paying minimum wage requires them to add a $5 fee to your order? Let’s dig in.
First, let’s be generous and assume that whole $5 they are making threats about will go to the person doing the work. An average job takes about 20 minutes from start to finish so $5 more per delivery means they’d have to pay $15 more per hour to make sure their workers are paid at least minimum wage after expenses.
The Seattle minimum wage for large companies is $17.27/hour. So if they need to pay $15/hour more to get to minimum wage, it means that right now, DoorDash is only paying workers $2.27/hour — according to their own ad! It's appalling but not too far off what we found in 2019: at that point, we calculated DoorDash was paying just $1.45/hour after expenses.
Quite an advertisement.
Tell City Council it’s time to advance the PayUp policy and ensure gig workers are paid at least minimum wage after expenses for all time worked.